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LocateTV Blog

Archive for December, 2007

Pick and mix

by Molly on December 19th 2007 at 5:53 pm

Ever wished that you could just have a list of when all your favourite TV shows and movies are next on, just at the touch of a button?

The day that LocateTV fans have been waiting for is here: the My Picks function has launched. One of our most common pieces of feedback throughout the beta phase has been from people wanting some way to create their own personalised lists of their top searches, so they have a tailor-made custom TV guide at a glance, ensuring that they never need miss an episode of their favourite TV series, or a showing of their favourite movie, again. My Picks is designed to do just this, and we hope you think it’s a clear and easy way to keep up with – well, with your picks.

It couldn’t be easier: search for your favourite show, click the ‘Add to my picks’ icon on the grey title bar of the show or and boom, there it is.

Of course, this also works for actors. My page reads like a ‘dream dinner guests’ wish list, showing when Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp and Daniel Day Lewis are next on TV so I can always get a fix of my favourite thesps.

Moreover, this is a great talking point with offline and online friends; it’s like your TV and movie DNA. What’s on your Picks list? Do you keep it pared to the very best or cram in every show you love?
We’re all schedulers now.

Get in the festive mood

by Molly on December 18th 2007 at 11:53 am

Keep them quiet and switch on the boxChristmas and TV go together like turkey and stuffing. When you’re tired of squabbling families and over-full of food, watching festive movies can be the one way to restore a little peace and good will among men. However, Christmas schedules can be a nightmare; the massive TV guide is falling apart as it’s wrenched from hand to hand and, despite the many shows you’d love to watch now you have the time, somehow when you sit down with a glass of mulled wine, there seems to be absolutely nothing decent on.

So, to take the stress from your scheduling and inject a little Christmas calm, LocateTV have produced two indispensible theme pages showing where and when you can watch holiday movies in the next couple of weeks: Christmas Turkeys and Christmas Crackers.

You’ll guess from the titles where we’re going with this. Some obvious classics like It’s A Wonderful Life and Gremlins are always worth a repeat and somehow restore a bit of sparkly spirit however many times you’ve seen them. They’re not all old; the wicked Bad Santa is a worthy recent addition to the ‘crackers’ canon.

However, Christmas is legendarily a time when, out of tradition, habit and brandy-addled sloth, you end up watching movies you’d never dream of wasting time on at any other time of the year. One word for you: Elf. Of course, sometimes watching cringe-worthy ‘turkeys’ makes it feel more like Christmas than any well-crafted film.

What are your Christmas TV traditions? Do you agree with the choices on our lists, or do you think Jingle All The Way is a work of comedy genius? Whatever your preferences, have a harmonious, stress-free holiday with LocateTV.

Check your region

by Molly on December 13th 2007 at 1:02 pm

Check your region

Just imagine: you own an Orlando Bloom fan site. You search for Mr Bloom on LocateTV, intending to embed one of our lovely widgets on your home page sidebar so that all your readers can instantly see which of his movies is next on TV, every time they visit your site. But the search result for Orlando shows… nothing. Surely not – that elfishly piratical Brit must have some blockbuster showing in the next couple of weeks! This was the dilemma of Sarah over at excellent siteThe Orlando Bloom Files and was proving something of a mystery… until she double-checked her region settings by clicking on the flag on the top right of LocateTV. She was set as an American, but her postcode and channels were wrong – once changed, they did indeed show all the great Bloom movies airing soon. So Sarah’s happy, her loyal Orlandophile readers are happy, we’re all happy.

Messsage of the fable: check your region, your postcode and your channels to ensure you’re getting the LocateTV data that’s relevant to you. Then enjoy the show.

Lottie

The Golden Compass or Labyrinth?

by Molly on December 10th 2007 at 3:10 pm

With the newly released The Golden Compass getting mixed reviews – is it a spine-tingling spectacular or a politics-and-religion-shy disappointment compared to Philip Pullman’s books? – we’d like to ask you a provocative question.

Are today’s fantasy movies too CGI-slick? Was the rough-around-the-edges style of something like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth more spooky and magical than the glossy beauty of Lord of the Rings? Are epics bigger and better than ever, or do you pine for the old days of Willow, Legend and the like? Do amazing effects mean that our imaginations are redundant?

Your mission should you choose to accept it, has two stages:

First, check out our latest theme page showing where and when you can catch some of the best old fantasy epics on TV, old and new.

Now, argue your corner: has fantasy lost it’s magic? Leave a comment or drop us a link to your blog.

Lottie

Canada wants LocateTV

by Molly on December 3rd 2007 at 1:08 pm

Land of the excellent Due SouthWe’ve received lots of feedback from people such as Mori at the After Ellen blog who have been introduced to LocateTV, love the concept, but would like to see coverage in regions other than the US and UK. One of the most common requests is for Canadian coverage, so as a direct upshot of this feedback we are currently doing a study to look at the logistics of incorporating Canada into LocateTV.

Expanding our global coverage has been an ambition from the outset, but presents a number of challenges for us. For each new country we must source the information for TV listings and online and DVD coverage in that country. Then we need to combine that information with the data we already have, ensure that we can automatically regionalise the results for the visitors when they come to the site, and allow them to further personalise their results by setting their local TV supplier.

The net result is that when someone is embedding their favourite show on their webpage, blog or forum, they know that the visitors to their site will automatically get the listings for where the show is available in the country they live in – for example, we need to be able to say that a given episode of Heroes to be shown on Channel A in America is the same as the one that will be shown on Channel B in the UK and Channel C in Canada.

It’s a lot of work! So no promises yet for the Canadians as to when LocateTV we will be ready for them, but rest assured that we’re listening to your comments and it’s on the roadmap.

Due South at LocateTV.com

Colin

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